Los Angeles, CA (Law Firm Newswire) May 13, 2019 - Software company Oracle has been accused of paying minorities and women less than white male employees in an ongoing discrimination lawsuit. The Department of Labor (DOL) filed new documents in the suit and allege Oracle paid minority and female employees as much as $401 million less over four years.

Oracle, which is headquartered in Redwood City, California, paid minorities and women less in primarily two ways: by basing starting salaries on previous salaries and by steering these employees into lower paying jobs upon hire. These practices created wage disparities that not only persisted but grew worse with time. The government suit claims that more than 4,000 Oracle female, black and Asian employees at the Redwood City location were underpaid.

The suit also claims that Oracle had a strong preference for hiring Asian students with visas. These employees were dependent upon Oracle for sponsorship to stay in the United States and therefore extremely vulnerable to wage discrimination. The DOL says that 90 percent of the 500 engineers hired at Oracle headquarters through student recruiting programs from 2013-2016 were Asian. Of those 500 engineers, only six were black.

The company has been threatened with the cancellation of its existing government contracts, which are worth more than $100 million, and a ban on any new contracts until it corrects the discriminatory practices and pays affected employees lost wages.

“The laws are clear in that discrimination based on race, or sex, can not be tolerated, much less engrained into workplace culture,” said employment attorney Betsy Havens of Strong Advocates in Los Angeles. “Recent lawsuits against tech companies like Oracle and Google highlight the ongoing issue of pay disparities.”

To learn more about wage discrimination please visit: https://www.strongadvocates.com.